Advice from an Elder on Who to Vote For

I must have had this same conversation a thousand times. There is good criteria for Christians to vote, especially Orthodox Christians. Wisdom. Let us attend.

Have you voted yet? Here is some advice from the Elder Paisios. When some people went to visit the Elder just before an election they asked who they should vote for. And he replied:

Vote for the one you believe it is best; the one who loves God and our country.

They always gave the same reply:

They are all the same, Father.

Then he added:

Well, look here. All olive trees are the same; all of them are affected by the same disease called dakos. However, some are affected 100% by it, others 80% and others 50%. Since we are in need of olive trees, we have to look for the ones that are affected the least. When we go to vote, we should always bear in mind two things:

a) how much the candidate loves God and is thus a conscious member of the Church, and

b) how much he loves his country and look solely after its interests and not his own.

If someone uses another criterion to vote, he is acting out of self-interests and is not behaving like a true Christian. Later on, divine justice will allow him to pay for his mistake.

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Gospel of Peace.

- Isaiah 52:7 & Romans 10:15

We must be super-conservative in preserving the Orthodox faith, and super-modern in propagating it.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich

But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.